Practice
by Romulan Empress
Summary: Continuation of the kotatsu scene from episode 24. Tamaki decides they need to practice being hosts... Mild TamakiKyouya, oneshot.


I was just getting to the point where the series could go pretty much anywhere with the pairings and I would be happy when episode 24 came up and smacked me. Suddenly, I love TamakiKyouya. A miniature plot bunny came along with that, so I wrote this shortly after finishing the series. Normally I prefer to write things with a bit more... plot, but oh well. Here is a short continuation of the kotatsu scene from episode 24. Go read it.

"You cannot be serious," Ootori Kyouya said dryly, sipping his tea to show just how disinterested he was in this newest idea.

"But I am. I have everything planned out!" Suou Tamaki protested. He took a gulp of his own tea and violently shoved the cup away as it burned him. Unperturbed, he reached for the mandarin oranges Kyouya had not forgotten. "You know the third music room? I go there to practice piano alone sometimes because it hasn't been used in years. That would be our meeting room. It's certainly big enough. As for furniture…"

"Wait a minute," Kyouya interrupted, putting up a hand to forestall the nonsense coming from his best friend's lips. "Have you even talked to these other people? _I_ haven't even agreed yet!"

"Oh, they'll all come," Tamaki said with the careless certainty of one who has never known failure. "The ladies will come too, before you protest on that angle. How could anyone refuse this beautiful face?" Tamaki raised a hand and ran it through his blonde hair and looked up at Kyouya with half-closed violet eyes. Kyouya tilted his head so his eyes could not be seen through the glare on his glasses and firmly reminded himself that Tamaki was his best friend and _only_ his best friend and an idiot to boot.

Apparently Tamaki had not seen his eyes for he started laughing again and the tension was broken. "We can cosplay various themes and decorate the music room to match our costumes. Oh, and not everything has to be a regular meeting either! We can have special parties and dances too. Doesn't that sound fun?"

"Thrilling," Kyouya said tonelessly, peering into his tea. That damn stalk was still upright.

"You just haven't seen how exciting this could be," the oblivious blonde said, finally realizing that Kyouya was less than enthused about the Host Club. "Come on, let's practice."

"P-practice?" Kyouya asked, startled. He looked up from the now-tepid tea to Tamaki. He had stood and offered one hand to Kyouya, his violet eyes sparkling with mischief. Sighing in resignation, the dark-haired teen took the offered hand and was nearly pulled over by his friend's enthusiasm.

"Sorry, sorry!" Tamaki said, not looking repentant in the least. Kyouya shook his head, hiding the small smile gracing his features.

"I will call for some girls so we can practice," he said, reaching toward his pants pocket. A hand grasped his wrist and stopped it. Filled with dread, Kyouya glanced up to see the look on Tamaki's face that usually meant he was in trouble somehow.

"Why spoil the surprise for them? We can practice with each other," he said. "My sister has a dress that might fit you."

"No," Kyouya said instantly. Then Tamaki's words registered. "Wait, why do I have to be the girl? And that does not mean that I have agreed with this ludicrous idea of yours, you know." Tamaki laughed, too self-assured for his own good.

"You're shorter than me," Tamaki said, crossing his arms with an air of finality as though that small fact explained everything.

Kyouya sputtered helplessly. "I am shorter than you by a few centimeters!" he protested, wondering how he got drawn into such a pointless argument. "That is no reason for me to play the girl."

"Sure it is," Tamaki said, breezily ignoring Kyouya. "I suppose we could skip the dress though. Don't worry, because I will see you in a dress, for one reason or another!" Tamaki pointed dramatically at Kyouya, who was still trying to determine when he had agreed to any facet of this plan. "Now, you stand over there, and I will wait on this couch. You then enter and—"

"This is absurd," Kyouya said, sitting back down at the kotatsu and reaching for a mandarin orange of his own. He pausing in peeling it when he realized Tamaki had not responded. The blonde was hunched in a corner, hugging his knees and whimpering slightly. Kyouya felt some wall within his heart crumple.

"Tamaki…" he murmured, the irritation gone from his voice as he walked across the room and crouched beside his friend. He placed a hand on the white-clad shoulder and Tamaki turned to look at him, his violet eyes huge and brimming with tears. Anything Kyouya would have said fled his mind. "I'll do it," he said through clenched teeth, wrenching his eyes away.

"Bravo! Mon ami!" Tamaki crowed, bouncing up and hugging Kyouya before flitting over to the couch and draping himself onto it. Kyouya blinked and shook the stars from his head before standing and taking his place where Tamaki indicated.

"Now what happens?" Kyouya asked, mustering his nearly infinite patience.

"Now you enter! Welcome!" Tamaki said, standing and bowing with an elaborate flourish. Ruefully thinking that Tamaki was the only one who could control him like this, Kyouya walked over to the couch and sat next to the other boy, who took his hand and brought it to his lips.

"Hello, Suou-kun," Kyouya said mechanically, deciding that it was safest to play along for the moment.

"The blue of your sweater today really brings out your eyes," Tamaki said, no sign of humor remaining in his manner. Unconsciously, Kyouya tilted his head away. "However," Tamaki said, raising a hand to touch the wire frame of the shorter boy's eyeglasses, "these hide them far too often." Tamaki hooked one slender finger around the wire, brushing Kyouya's cheek, and pulled them off his face.

"Tamaki!" Kyouya said, attempting to regain his breath in the face of Tamaki in full-blown charm mode. He reached up and tapped the forehead between tufts of blonde hair, hoping to distract himself and failing miserably. "Aren't we supposed to be preparing to seduce girls, not… me?" Tamaki laughed easily.

"So even the invincible Ootori Kyouya is not immune to my charms!" he said in delight. "But Kyouya, I have to play host to you specifically. Compliments have to be sincere," he said, looking more thoughtful. "The girls at our Host Club will be beautiful, so they will be used to the compliments of admiring males. We want to make them genuinely happy, not regurgitate the senseless drivel everyone else does. How else would we be unique? Why would people come if we did not really believe, on some level, what we were saying?" He turned inquiring eyes to Kyouya, who was stunned at the depth of consideration in the normally frivolous heir.

"Surely we are not supposed to be sincere to everyone who crosses our threshold," Kyouya pointed out, thinking of the numerous people he could only call "annoying".

"Why not?" Tamaki asked, genuinely puzzled. "Everyone has some good points, and everyone deserves to be loved, to be complimented, to be pampered. The world doesn't have enough niceness in it like that, ne, Kyouya?" Kyouya's eyes widened. Free from their glass prison, Tamaki could read the emotions swirling through them easily. There was confusion and denial and some emotion the heir could not quite place.

"I-I would not know," Kyouya said hesitantly.

"You can't fake sincerity, you know," Tamaki said, standing and stretching. Kyouya gave an odd cough that sounded like "Try me!" and Tamaki laughed again.

"Didn't you want to practice?" Kyouya asked, clinging to something substantial, unwilling to think about the questions Tamaki had posed. The blonde turned and for a moment, he looked like he was about to say something. Then he changed his mind and smiled instead.

"Okay," he agreed, tossing the glasses in his hand onto the kotatsu and flopping back onto the couch. The mischief was back in his eyes when he turned to Kyouya and asked, "I though you were against this idea?"

"It's bizarre," Kyouya said, leaning back as well and closing his eyes. "It could be amusing."

"You can be a co-founder!" Tamaki said, seizing upon this acquiescence with his usual glee. "I am the father of the new Ouran High School Host Club, so I guess that makes you the mother." Kyouya opened his eyes in shock, unused to the continuing jokes, only to find Tamaki leaning over him, his face centimeters away, dancing eyes daring him to say something.

"Idiot," Kyouya said, shoving his friend onto the floor. "You're doing this on purpose." However, there was no malice in the words.

"Yeah, I suppose I am," Tamaki admitted unashamedly. His carefree grin was back in place as he picked himself up and walked back over to the kotatsu. He wiggled his way underneath it until only his shoulders and head were outside and sighed in contentment. "I think we practiced enough for now," he murmured, his head lolling back onto the blue carpet. "Will you give me the half of orange you have left?" Kyouya narrowed his eyes, trying to determine if this was another game.

"Alright," he said at last, seemingly satisfied with what he saw. He sat next to the taller boy and pushed his own legs under the kotatsu. Tamaki opened his mouth and happily accepted the pieces of orange Kyouya gave him.

"Thank you, Mommy," he said after the dark-haired boy gave him the last slice. Kyouya looked down, attempting to keep his expression under control. To his surprise, there was no smirk or teasing glint to the blonde's eyes. There was only sincere gratitude and affection.

"You're welcome, Daddy," Kyouya said, steeling himself once again to be a part of Tamaki's ridiculous notions.

"You know, Kyouya," Tamaki said, maneuvering his head so it snuggled up against his friend's legs, "I was not just referring to the girls earlier." He looked directly up into the dark grey depths of Kyouya's eyes, happy that the other boy had not put back on his glasses just yet. "Even snarly people like you need to be loved and complimented. You're mon ami, so don't fight it so hard, okay? I get sad when you are lonely."

"What makes you think I am lonely?" Kyouya asked, his face unreadable.

"You're really good at controlling your facial expressions, but you can't control your eyes," Tamaki muttered sleepily. "Ne, Kyouya, can we sleep here tonight? It's really warm."

"What?" Kyouya asked, startled by the sudden change in topic. "You know, the guest bedroom has electric blankets, and it is far more comfortable than the floor. I had the maids put—"

"I like it here," Tamaki said in a soft whine. "Your sweater is really soft." As though to prove his point, the heir seized a fistful of the wool and pulled Kyouya down fully onto the floor. Kyouya caught himself with one and watched as the blonde tresses swayed back and forth as Tamaki buried his face in the sweater.

"I… suppose it could not hurt to stay here… for a few more minutes," Kyouya said, brushing his head across the fair head, so unlike his own. "Sometimes one has to indulge idiots to get ahead." Kyouya placed his hands behind his head and lowered himself fully to the floor. The words he did not speak but that Tamaki heard were that Tamaki mattered to Kyouya too, that somehow he had become more than just another insufferable assignment from Kyouya's father.

"I promise I will make sure this imbecilic Host Club of yours works," Kyouya whispered into the silence. It was hardly a traditional confession, but where his head was buried, Tamaki secretly smiled.


End file.
